SK Hynix, World's First Mass Production Countdown for '10nm-Class 6th Generation DRAM'

Vice President Cha Sunyong Mentions "Mass Qualification" at Town Hall Meeting

SK Hynix is expected to become the world's first to mass-produce DRAM using 10-nanometer class 6th generation (1c) fine process as early as next month.

According to industry sources on the 17th, Cha Sun-yong, Vice President and Head of SK Hynix Future Technology Research Institute, said at the town hall meeting for employee communication on the 15th, "Mass qualification was achieved on the 14th" regarding the 10-nanometer class 6th generation DRAM.

Mass qualification means mass production certification. It can be interpreted that the quality and yield of the 6th generation DRAM produced by the company have improved to a level suitable for full-scale mass production.

SK Hynix is known to have transferred the 6th generation DRAM-related tasks from the development department to the manufacturing department and is expected to begin full-scale mass production as early as next month.

The company has been smoothly progressing from the world’s first development of 16Gb (gigabit) DDR5 applying the 6th generation in August last year to establishing a mass production system.

As the era of artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates and power consumption in data centers increases, applying 6th generation DRAM to data centers is expected to reduce power costs by up to 30% compared to before.

SK Hynix plans to apply 6th generation technology to future 7th generation high bandwidth memory (HBM) such as HBM4E.

Meanwhile, on the 17th, SK Hynix closed the trading session at 214,500 KRW, up 2.14% from the previous trading day. The stock price has risen for four consecutive trading days since the 14th.